ASSURE: Across-Scale processeS in URban Environments

Local and global consequences of climate change (enhanced urban heat islands, worsening environmental conditions) affect most of the world's urban population, but only recently have cities been represented, albeit crudely, in weather forecast models. To manage and develop sustainable, resilient and healthy cities requires improved forecasting and observations that cross neighbourhood-influenced scales which the next generation weather forecast models need to resolve. ASSURE addresses the critical issue of which processes need to be parameterised, and which resolved, to capture urban heterogeneity in space and time.

We will advance understanding to develop new approaches and parameterisations for larger-scale urban meteorological and dispersion models by combining the results of field observations, high-resolution numerical simulations and wind tunnel experiments. Field work and modelling will focus on Bristol, as its physical geography provides suitably high levels of complexity and allows whole-city approaches. With mid-sized cities being large sources of greenhouse gases, and where large numbers of people live, it is critical agencies can provide predictions of weather and climate variability across cities of this scale as they need this information to manage and provide their services. ASSURE will include idealised simulations and theoretical analyses to ensure generic applicability.

The ASSURE objectives are:
* To understand how sources of urban heterogeneity (physical setting, layout of buildings and neighbourhoods, human activities) combine to influence the urban atmosphere in space and time.
* To quantify effects of urban heterogeneity at different scales (street to neighbourhood, to city and beyond) on flow, temperature, moisture and air quality controlling processes and to determine how these processes interact.
* To develop a theoretical framework that captures key processes and feedbacks with reduced complexity to aid mesoscale and larger model...